


Barn-Top Confessions

by Glau (Glaucus_Atlanticus)



Series: Link and Malon [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Allusions to Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Not overtly Linked-Universe but fits the characters and setting, Pre-Relationship, brief mention of animal abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 09:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23709013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glaucus_Atlanticus/pseuds/Glau
Summary: “You never did tell me how old you are, fairy boy.”Link freezes, one hand on Epona’s coat and the other checking her teeth. It’s a simple question, and he knows Malon doesn’t mean anything by it. A simple question for anybody but him.
Relationships: Link/Malon (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Link and Malon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757593
Comments: 42
Kudos: 346





	Barn-Top Confessions

“You never did tell me how old you are, fairy boy.”

Link freezes, one hand on Epona’s coat and the other checking her teeth. It’s a simple question, and he knows Malon doesn’t mean anything by it. A simple question for anybody but him.

She’s leaning against the stable-post, hair even redder in the evening light, arms rough from a long day’s work. They always walk back to the farmhouse together, once the day’s chores are done. She tells him about the ranch, about her mother who passed away, about her bug collection from when she was a kid. He mostly listens and asks questions. It’s easier than talking about himself.

“Twenty-one,” she guesses. “Twenty-three? You look like an odd number of years.”

Odd is an understatement. He’s been nine, sixteen, nine again, ten, seventeen, years that happened but now haven’t. He’s been a Zora in his twenties, a Goron in his thirties, a little Deku child. He’s not sure if he’ll even be the same age tomorrow.

His eyes are fixed on his hand on Epona’s coat, and it looks like a Hylian man’s hand.

“Forty-five,” Malon says.

Her voice snaps him back to the present. The corners of her smile have turned a little tight, and seeing it brings up an ugly pang of guilt.

He gives her a grin he doesn’t feel. “Maybe.”

She huffs, pushing herself up off the post. “Give me a hint.”

“If I did, you’d tell me off for being difficult.”

She sticks out her tongue at him, like they’re still children, and takes his hand in hers.

“You _are_ being difficult,” she says, leading them back to her house. “Luckily for you, I don’t mind.”

* * *

He’s washing plates after dinner when Talon joins him.

“You don’t have to,” Link says. And Talon shouldn’t, not after doing the cooking, not after letting Link stay with them for the past two weeks. Talon muscles him aside anyway.

He grabs a dishcloth and gets right to the point. “Malon likes you.”

Link can’t stop his shoulders from tensing up. He keeps his eyes fixed on scrubbing a stain off the iron skillet.

“She’s always talking about how good you are with the horses,” Talon adds. “Yesterday she even said we could go to market and let you watch the ranch for us.”

Link swallows. This isn’t like combat, where he can dodge, parry, lunge, or run. Well, he could run, but it wouldn’t make things better.

“High praise, coming from her,” Talon says. “I thought for sure we’d never tame Epona.”

The skillet is spotless. Link finally notices, long after he should have left it to dry. He sets it aside and reaches for a pot.

Talon stops him.

“Horses are cautious creatures,” he says. “It takes time for them to trust someone, especially if they’ve been hurt. Malon knows that well.”

Link finally makes eye contact. “What if the horse is never ready?”

Talon lays a soapy hand on Link’s back.

“Even if the horse is wild, it will always be welcome here.”

He leaves Link to wash the rest of the dishes alone, a warm, damp handprint on his shirt.

* * *

Malon doesn’t ask about his age anymore, and for some reason, that doesn’t make him feel any better.

He sits atop the barn roof some nights, when the memories are particularly bad. He’s restrung his bow and slung the quiver over his shoulder, even though there’s nothing worth shooting for miles around. Lon Lon Ranch sits atop a hill overlooking Hyrule Field, and he can see the ramparts of Castle Town on the horizon, but it’s not enough to let him go back to bed. Not when the monsters came from the stars, and the stars are the same as they were in Termina.

The roof ladder groans behind him, and he has an arrow half-nocked before spotting Malon’s telltale red hair.

“Hey,” she says, taking a seat beside him.

He sets the bow and arrows aside. She watches, but mercifully doesn’t comment on it.

They sit like that for exactly seventeen minutes and thirteen seconds, and he hates the fact that he can tell. He feels each second tick by like a clock’s been wrought into his bones. Malon shifts beside him occasionally, gaze drifting through pastures, prairies, stars. She tucks her knees beneath her chin, and shivers.

He could start a fire in his hand to keep her warm. But normal people don’t do that, and this is the closest thing to normal he’s ever had.

“When you look out at the field like this,” she says, “what are you seeing?”

He considers, perhaps over-considers. He sees the bones of Hyrule’s soldiers rising from their graves. He sees Ingo beating the horses. He sees lights in the sky that shouldn’t be there, coming closer and closer. He sees a little girl who looked just like Malon, with the spark gone from her eyes.

Out loud, he answers, “Grass.”

Malon doesn’t laugh. He feels her studying him from the corner of her eye. After a few seconds, she leans over, slowly, and rests an arm around his shoulders.

He’s spent nearly three weeks at her ranch. She has more than a right to ask—to know what he’s doing here, why he was gone for so long, why he won’t turn his back on Ingo or why he climbs on top of the barn at night.

She doesn’t ask, and every day it hangs a little heavier between them, the things he doesn’t say.

* * *

It’s been four months, and they’ve settled into a routine, each of them with their daily chores. He no longer tenses up at the sight of Ingo, or checks to make sure the moon is where it’s supposed to be. He still glances down at himself every morning to make sure he’s still a Hylian.

Malon smiles at him more, and blushes when he catches her watching him. She leans in when they talk and brushes the fringe from his eyes even if it’s not in the way. And maybe he really is an adult, because they’ve always been friends, but this feels different. It feels like a rein leading him down a path, pulling him closer, and part of him wants to gallop but—but the closer they get, the more there is to lose.

There are things he should have told her and Talon long ago, and now it may be too late. He’d tried telling people before. When he looked like a child, they thought he was looking for attention. When he looked like an adult, they said he was mad.

Maybe he is mad. The Hyrule around him now is beautifully normal. Perhaps he’d merely imagined it otherwise. But that would mean denying Darmani, Mikau, and the little Deku Scrub, and he isn’t callous enough to erase them, even if everyone else does.

Malon has the right to know about them, too. Before she gets any more attached to him.

* * *

The next time he climbs on top of the barn, she’s waiting for him. She’s wrapped in a cloak, and when he sits down beside her, she extends it over both their shoulders.

“Thank you,” he says, and her smile is radiant even in the dark.

His skin burns where she’s pressed up beside him, and half of him thinks _too close too close_ while the other half thinks _not close enough._ He’d never thought he could feel claustrophobic under the wide open sky.

She’s never pressured him, would be horrified if she knew, but the pressure’s built up anyway and he has to let something out.

“I’m at least twenty-two,” he starts. It’s the stupidest possible opening.

“Twenty-two,” she repeats, head on his shoulder. “You’re not sure?”

“I don’t know how to count it.”

She snorts a small laugh. “It’s the number between twenty-one and twenty three.”

“Yes, thank you, Malon.” He’s smiling a little, too, now, but the pressure only feels tighter in his chest. “I mean, I don’t know if I _can_ count it. After what happened.”

For a long minute, she’s quiet, and it’s just the two of them on the roof, looking out over Hyrule.

“Alright,” she says at last. “What happened?”

He struggles to reply, eyes distant, too many starting points coming to mind. The Deku Tree. The war. Zelda, time travel, the ocarina, the ranch, even his and Malon’s first meeting as children. The seven years that may or may not have happened to him, the jumping back and forth between six ages and five different bodies, the same three days repeating over and over and over—

A hand squeezes his, and he’s at the ranch again. Malon’s sitting in front of him now, and she looks serious, but not afraid.

“Breathe,” she says, and brushes her hand over his cheek, like calming a nervous foal.

He’s never wanted to kiss someone before.

But he needs to breathe, and he does, and he needs to figure out how to talk about all of...this, first. Even if she believes him, he doubts she’d want to be with a man(?) who’s obviously a magnet for problems. And she has the right to make an informed decision, even if it’s not what he wants. Even if she joins all the other people who called him mad.

But he can’t make the words come to his mouth, so in the end, he just lights a fire in his palm.

Her eyes go wide, and for a second she stares.

The she shouts, “You put that out right _now!”_

“Okay, okay!” He throws up his hands. “It’s out!”

“What were you thinking, lighting a fire on top of a wooden barn, we’re surrounded by hay!” She grabs his hand and looks it over for scorch marks. “If you’re going to show me magic fire powers, do it in the kitchen next time.”

“What,” he says articulately.

She gives him a _look._

“Alright. Fire in the kitchen. You’re not bothered by—this?”

“Why would I be bothered by _you?”_

She’s not backing away, or cringing in fear, or looking at him like some kind of freak. It feels...he’s not sure how to name this odd feeling. But it’s a starting point.

“I got it from a fairy,” he says, and thank goodness Malon believes in fairies. “She called it Din’s Fire. It’s for banishing the forces of evil.”

Her face lights up, eyes wide and hungry.

“Tell me _everything.”_

He tells her everything. Badly. It starts in the middle with why he was fighting evil, did he win, why didn’t anyone remember it, and it meanders through two different Hyrules and a Termina. It’s less a story, and more like a bunch of little stories out of order. It’s a mess, like he is. He looks away from her when time travel and erased memories come into the picture, because that is the least believable part, and she’s unusually silent as she listens. Then it’s back through Termina, and the three days that never stopped.

They’re sharing the cloak again, and he’s pretty sure she’s just humoring him at this point. People usually did before, until he learned not to talk about it. He keeps his eyes on the field, not wanting to see the skepticism in her face.

“Identical strangers, huh,” she murmurs, voice soft by his shoulder. “Did you ever meet someone who looked like me?”

He nods. “Her name was Romani. She had a ranch, too. For dairy.”

Malon goes very still.

“We never—” He stops. Starts again. “We were just kids at the time.”

She hums. “What was she like?”

“Cheerful. Tomboyish.” He mulls over opening another weird tangent, but she’s been patient with him thus far. “And strange creatures from the sky were stealing her cows.”

“ _What?”_ Malon sputters, jerking up.

“I’m serious.” He holds up a hand to continue. “Purple bug things with glowing eyes and big claws. I had to fight them one night. I promise I’m not—”

She grabs him by the shoulders. “You mean you’ve seen them _too?”_

“I—yes? _Too?”_

“Oh, thank the gods, I thought it was just me!”

Her voice sounds like she might cry, but her smile is bigger than he’s ever seen, and she’s hugging him like he saved the world just for her.

“Nobody ever believed me,” she says. “It was, ‘Malon, you have an overactive imagination.’ ‘Malon, it’s just bandits.’ ‘Malon, stop lying to get attention.’”

“I believe you,” he says, hugging her back.

She nods against his shoulder, and the _too close, not close enough_ feeling sputters out, overwhelmed by a desire to just be here with her. And to give a _stern talking-to_ for anyone who calls her a liar again.

“I believe you,” he repeats, voice soft.

She lets out a long, deep breath, and lets him stroke the hair running down her back.

Then she whispers back, “I believe you, too.”

They hold each other for a long time, neither wanting to let go. There’s a red glow on the eastern horizon, and the stars are beginning to fade. He’s going to feel the exhaustion in his bones all day. And he probably won’t get any work done, but that’s alright. There will be more days to come.

He knows what the odd feeling is now.

It’s home.


End file.
